Apple mixes things up for WWDC 2013, with pre-announced ticket sales

WWDC 2013 will take place June 10-14 in San Francisco and focus on iOS and OS X.

Apple is trying something new when it comes to ticketing for its annual Worldwide Developers Conference. Following five years of increasingly speedy sell-outs, Apple has announced that ticket orders will take place on Thursday, April 25 at 10am PDT, giving developers a chance to prepare in advance for the sale. The event will take place from June 10 to the 14th at Moscone West in San Francisco.

According to Apple, the focuses of WWDC 2013 will be, as usual, on iOS and OS X. There will be more than 100 technical sessions taught by Apple engineers and over 1,000 Apple engineers available on hand to help out in the labs and other events. The company will again be holding its annual Apple Design Awards to recognize iPhone, iPad, and Mac apps that meet Apple's standards for "technical excellence" and design.

"We look forward to gathering at WWDC 2013 with the incredible community of iOS and OS X developers," Apple's Phil Schiller said in a statement. "Our developers have had the most prolific and profitable year ever, and we’re excited to show them the latest advances in software technologies and developer tools to help them create innovative new apps. We can’t wait to get new versions of iOS and OS X into their hands at WWDC."

Apple's developer community has been on-edge in the days leading up to the announcement thanks to last year's debacle. In 2012, all 5,000 tickets to WWDC sold out in about two hours. This marks a problematic trend. In 2011, tickets sold out in 12 hours; in 2010 it was about 10 days, while in 2009 it was a month. Because of this rapidly shrinking time frame in which to secure a spot for Apple's talks and sessions, third-party developers were sure that ticket sales would be a feeding frenzy this year, and many set up automated text alerts to let them know the very instant Apple made the WWDC 2013 announcement.

For non-developers, though, WWDC 2013 may not be the platform for all our secret hardware fantasies to come true. Apple CEO Tim Cook announced on Tuesday during the company's second quarter conference call that new products were indeed in the pipeline, but we aren't likely to see them before Q4 2013 and into 2014. In fact, overcrowding at WWDC may be part of the reason Apple has chosen to make that roadmap information public—numerous reporters and non-developers buy tickets to WWDC just so they can get into the keynote, therefore taking away a spot for an otherwise interested developer. (Apple also extends invitations to certain media outlets to cover the keynote, but those seats are reserved for media regardless of how many developers are in attendance.) Without the overt promise of shiny new products, some non-developers may choose to sit this WWDC out.

And, it's worth noting that Apple now requires developers buying tickets to have been part of the developer program before today in order to buy tickets. And, as noted by TNW, Apple apparently plans to publish WWDC session videos while the conference is still going on instead of afterwards, giving an opportunity to watch along at home for those who can't attend.

That doesn't mean we won't see anything new coming out of WWDC. Like in 2012, Apple will probably give a preview of what's to come in the next versions of iOS and OS X. Ars staffers and readers alike have numerous pie-in-the-sky wishes for iOS 7, though there have been some rumors that iOS 7 has been "running behind."

Whatever the reason for Apple's decision to pre-announce ticket sales, most developers we've seen on Twitter have been relieved. (Well, we did say most.) Last year's two-hour sellout left many developers on the west coast (and beyond) without a ticket because the surprise sale started while they were still asleep, so the ability to plan this time around is a rare allowance from a company that likes to keep everything secret.